New Haven Independent

“If you stand for righteousness, come out, because it’s sad, y’all!” cried local poet Remidy, into a mic set up at the corner of Sylvan Avenue and Elliott Street in the Hill Friday evening. “It’s time for us to wake up as a community. Let’s fall in and get our streets back!” backed up his brother Blest, also a poet and rapper, and an activist for local peace through his group “Uniting our Youth.”

The Kensington Street-born brothers were leading voices in a “Stop the Violence — Take Back Our Community” rally organized by Alderwoman James, following a week of city-shaking bullets like the one that killed 13-year old Jajuana Cole. Drawing about 50 people to the recognized “hot” corner to hear from aldermen, hip-hop artists, and hell-invoking reverends, the event aimed at showing youth the older community’s now involved and not going away. “It’s got to be more than a one-time thing,” said Andre Thompson/”The Voice” after his rapped warning about the dangers of the drug hustle. “They’ve got to see men involved, staying involved — not here today, gone tomorrow.”

(To watch videos of the rally’s highlights, made by Tom Ficklin, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Among event leaders, at least, resolve and energy were high. Alderwoman James said she plans to investigate the possibility of a three-strike fining system for the parents of peace-disrupting kids. “Parents need to work with us. They know what their children are doing — so take responsibility!” Blest was for the immediate expansion of inter-neighborhood youth programs, and wondered what the city was waiting for to turn budgeted Youth Initiative money into positive opportunities like all-city sports leagues. He urged just being in the streets, meanwhile — walking them en masse nights, when youth now have the sole run of the place. “No one’s calling them in,” said Blest, recalling undisturbed crowds below his Stevens Street window all hours of day and night. “I was wondering when they ate!”

This parent neglect, said Reverend Kenny Peeples, is the devil. “Parents, if you keep being apathetic, they’ll pimp your daughter! Your son won’t be able to leave his house in summer!” Echoing Alderman Jorge Perez (pictured below at left) that street-regulation starts at home “at the kitchen table,” Peeples urged parents to start acting like parents again. “What are you so scared of? These are your kids!”

But alongside these calls for re-upped community-style peacekeeping was a call for more help from the police. It’s great that they’re strategizing in City Hall, said Alderwoman James (pictured at right, with Perez and Alderman Al Paolillo, center), but where are they on infamously crime-trafficked corners like Sylvan and Elliott? At least department leaders should have made it to the “absolutely neglected” spot on Friday to show they’re serious about working with citizens, she said.

“This is not just a test for the community, it was a test for the police. Where are they? There’s not a single police officer here. Everybody’s saying, where are the police?”

Rev. Peeples had hoped to see them, too — especially because he has some concerns about the way they’re confronting problems in the neighborhoods. Yes, police need to help enforce peace, but in a way that builds trust with the community. Jajuana Cole’s alleged murderers warranted swift seizure — but what about the facial injuries Lamont Swint was reported to be suffering after his arrest? “I’d like to know where the marks came from. Because if the police did it, they need to be held accountable.” A piece of the “Police and The Urban Community Forum” Peeples is organizing for July 19 at Career High School will be to make sure “protect and serve doesn’t mean seek and destroy,” said Peeples.

Friday’s flow of ideas turned up other sweeping concerns. “Subliminal messages” from dominant culture tell black youth what they can and can’t be, and rob their self-esteem, said Blest. “Through hip-hop they taught us how to sell drugs and kill each other and now we’re doing it,” said another speaker on the mic (pictured), associating “they” with whites supporting and profiting off the industry. “It might not be a whip, it might not be a lynching rope,” said Blest, but “poverty is violence.” These kids’ parents can’t buy them the things TV says they need, so they sell drugs to buy them for themselves.

“They’re out selling drugs,” affirmed Jennifer Foreman, 26 (below at right), visiting her fiance’s family’s Sylvan Avenue porch Friday. “There’s a lot going on,” agreed her friend Shintell Clark (below at left), about the Sylvan Avenue corner and the need for regulation. “What needs to happen is programs for these people. The economy’s so bad, their parents work two to three jobs.”

“Drugs,” agreed Shintell’s grandmother Mary Clark (behind), who’s lived on the corner for 25 years. “For awhile it was quieted down. Now it’s picking back up.”

Drugs “like crack, weed, heroin,” said 15-year old Lemont Branch (pictured second from the right), identifying the dealers as kids younger than he. He didn’t think a public rally was going to change that, noting there were just a few young people at the fringes of Friday’s event. “You don’t see teenagers here because they don’t believe in stuff like this. They’re going to keep on doing what they’re doing. They don’t care.”

They wouldn’t want their friends to see them out there with all those adults, said Bianka O’Bryan (pictured), who lives across the street. “They want to be all big and bad and seem tough.” What was she doing at the rally? “I’m listening.”